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Monthly Archives: February 2015

“You’re a kid. What do you know?” Maybe you haven’t said it, but you’ve thought it. The other afternoon I was walking the dog with my 4 year old daughter. As we tried to make our way down the sidewalk I kicked a piece of plastic that was sure to go in my French bulldog’s mouth, to the side. My 4 year old scolded me. “Mommy! What are you doing?!” I gave her that confused, startled but annoyed look you would give any child who yells at you. I told her why I kicked this precious piece of plastic into the grass as I watched her wander over to it and to my horror pick it up. She explained to me, hands akimbo, that this disgusting, germ-infested neon green piece of plastic was NOT garbage. This was in fact a piece of a Ninja Turtle spaceship that had broken off.

She insisted on bringing this thing home so we could wash it off and assemble it into a vessel for 4 large, talking, karate-kicking turtles. I’ve learned to pick my battles. The plastic came home. It was washed and after hours of assembling, gluing, complaining and cursing it turned into TMNT Spaceship.

It has become her favorite toy. Something so small, dirty and insignificant became the source of complete awesomeness to a 4 year old. Don’t discredit the mundane. The rarest gems are the ones that just need a little dusting off.

Her name means “light” and that is what she is… high energy, bright and fast. And yes… she does run regularly. While we’re not sure what she is running from (perhaps her two young kids) we know she’s covered a ton of ground. She was the Executive Producer for an award winning and number one rated morning show in Tampa for years. And now, she uses her unique blend of organization, storytelling and curiosity to help Mad Bear clients find their stories. Think of her as an architect, a story architect.

Our social media manager just reached out to me this morning with a thought provoking request. She knew this topic is something VERY near and dear to my heart.

What follows is our exchange:

Good Morning Glenn,

Today on Twitter #AdviceForYoungJournalists is trending, if you have any pieces of advice you would find important to share I’d love to capitalize on this topic.

Hope all is well and business is booming over at Mad Bear.

Thank you,
Chelsea

Interesting!

hmmmm…. now to come up with something profound. How’s this?

Everyone talks about how journalism is changing and it is: there are new platforms, new voices, new ways to engage and share, even new audiences. You could even make the argument now the audience is in charge of the direction of news. And with that the News model has been flipped upside down as the industry struggles with how to financially sustain itself. Clicks, views, eyeballs, etc.. are more coveted and are used to quantify the success of this newfangled and evolving business model.

But what I hope never changes is the noble and untainted pursuit of truth.

So my advice would be: whatever your reason to become a journalist… keep that very close to you because there will be a lot of distractions along the way and something has to be your beacon.

What do you think? Anything to add? Reactions? This is such an important subject. We swim in media. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what we are swimming in….